Swamp Thing
I was born on a dark and stormy night and when I was born I was young, very young. So much for the Louis L'Amour style of writing.
I was born in Picayune, Miss. a depressing number of years ago. I have a few fleeting memories of the three to five year age. My first hard memories were of living on the old family homestead close to Oloh, Miss which is about halfway between Hattiesburg and Columbia. Our playground was in the swamps which were full of varmints and wild critters.
About the time I started school I had a bout with meningitis, which slowed me down some.
We farmed, picked tung oil nuts, and share harvested, which is you help me and you get a share of the crop.
I suppose by today's standards we were hard put upon, what with no running water, no indoor plumbing, no electricity, and such like that but I never felt deprived. We ate better that I have any time since.
My first really complete memory had to do with the theater, or in the case of Oloh, the lack of a theater.
Since Oloh had no theater, every summer a tent theater would come to town, and it would show a double feature, previews, travel shorts, and such like that. To get to Oloh and the theater we had to walk, going through two small swamps and wooded area the rest of the way. We made the walk one night, and since it was a full moon we could see without artificial light. It was a double feature and one of the movies was Hoppalong Cassidy movie. It had to to do with horses and maybe a gun shot or two.
The other movie, however, was FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN, after which we had that walk back through those two swamps. My brother, who was older and wiser, would sneak out in the bushes in front of us and jump up making growly sounds. There was more that one wet spot on that path that night.
I was born in Picayune, Miss. a depressing number of years ago. I have a few fleeting memories of the three to five year age. My first hard memories were of living on the old family homestead close to Oloh, Miss which is about halfway between Hattiesburg and Columbia. Our playground was in the swamps which were full of varmints and wild critters.
About the time I started school I had a bout with meningitis, which slowed me down some.
We farmed, picked tung oil nuts, and share harvested, which is you help me and you get a share of the crop.
I suppose by today's standards we were hard put upon, what with no running water, no indoor plumbing, no electricity, and such like that but I never felt deprived. We ate better that I have any time since.
My first really complete memory had to do with the theater, or in the case of Oloh, the lack of a theater.
Since Oloh had no theater, every summer a tent theater would come to town, and it would show a double feature, previews, travel shorts, and such like that. To get to Oloh and the theater we had to walk, going through two small swamps and wooded area the rest of the way. We made the walk one night, and since it was a full moon we could see without artificial light. It was a double feature and one of the movies was Hoppalong Cassidy movie. It had to to do with horses and maybe a gun shot or two.
The other movie, however, was FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN, after which we had that walk back through those two swamps. My brother, who was older and wiser, would sneak out in the bushes in front of us and jump up making growly sounds. There was more that one wet spot on that path that night.
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"our playground was the swamp that was full ...".
this really got my attention as i really enjoyed the a&e show "swamp people" and it reminded me of the opening act for a concert i saw when i was about 14/15. the guy said he was from louisiana, back in the swamp. he asked if we(the crowd, mostly collegiate)remembered when we were little and were afraid to leave our arms or legs hanging off the bed at night cause the monsters under the bed would bite it off? that got a big laugh.
he said where he was from, when the bayous would rise all kinds of creepy things would be using that arm or leg as a bridge to get in bed with you that night!
i had an extra good time at the concert that night.Posted 12-12-2010 at 06:33 by xdmikey 
